fiji

Tropical cyclone Winston is now a Category 4 storm and is probably going to make a direct hit on Fiji, tomorrow, Saturday. It will likely be a record storm for Fiji. The storm is fueled by high sea surface temperatures, which extend to a significant depth, which probably caused the storm to intensify rapidly and to such a high state. Jeff Masters and Bob Henson have written up the important information on this storm, here. Fiji has been hit with a number of bad tropical storms, mainly concentrated in recent decades. UPDATE (Friday PM Central) Jeff Masters and Bob Henson are now…
Pheidole pegasus Sarnat 2008 Fiji Eli Sarnat, the reigning expert on the Ants of Fiji, has just published a lovely taxonomic revision of a group of Pheidole that occur on the islands. Pheidole are found in warmer regions worldwide, but Fiji has seen a remarkable radiation of species that share a bizarre set of spines on the mesosoma. Eli sorted through hundreds of these things to determine that the group contains seven species, five of which had not previously been described. Pheidole pegasus is largest and among the most distinct of the group.  It was collected only once, from the…